(opinions on just about anything)

Just, like, Books ‘n’ Stuff

How sad is it that the last really good book I’ve read was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Yes, it is still considered a recent release… but I literally finished it the day that it came out. I picked it up at midnight and was finished by 6pm. Since then I have started several books and finished exactly zero. I started working on The Elves and the Otterskin by Elizabeth Boyer. It isn’t horrid and is getting more exciting as I get deeper into it. Yet it lacks subtlety and finesse. Nothing about it really separates it from the crowd.

Several days ago I re-picked up The Other Side of the Sun by Madeleine L’Engle. Precious few recognize L’Engle beyond her children’s classic A Wrinkle In Time, yet she has a massive catalog of books to her name. Last year I decided to try her other stuff and was amazed at how well written it all was. Very quickly she became my favorite author. Yet there were a few books that scared me. This one and The Love Letters. I had to put The Love Letters down for about three to four months before I could work up the courage to finish it. Once I did that I picked this one up and got about one chapter into it before setting it down. Now, over a half year later, I find myself picking it up again and getting engaged. Maybe I had simply burned out on her stuff… after all, I read most of her novels in a one and a half month period. Whatever the case, here I am and I know I’m going to finish it this time. It is a novel which, to quote the cover of my trade paperback version, is about “a family divided by hatred and greed…” Yet there seems to be an underlying mystery that is boiling which should serve as an anchor as the waves of the family problems are ridden. We’ll see. After I finish this one I don’t think there is much left, fiction-wise, for me to hit up from L’Engle. I can think of maybe two more off the top of my head. Then there is a whole slew of biography and Bible-related books that she’s done. Not to mention poetry and such. (She is one of the few poets I can not just tolerate, but enjoy. But I am glad that most of her stuff is in prose, regardless.)

When I do get around to finishing the Boyer book and several others in my room with bookmarks in the mid-way point I recently acquired the follow-up book to Orson Scott Card’s masterpiece, Ender’s Game. I have heard that the rest of the series is also good, although I have trouble believing that they are as dizzying or awe-inducing as the first. Ender’s Game had a twist that M. Night Shyamalan would give the world for.

If anyone has any good book recommendations for me, I’d love to hear them. Particularly newer releases as I have a tough time keeping up with new authors of note.

About Me

I am into music, particularly that of a quirky/avant-garde nature. Examples: Sonic Youth, The Residents, The Fiery Furnaces, The Danielson Famile, and so forth. I also like normal indie stuff: Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, Hella, The Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, blah blah blah. And more mainstream things: Eagles of Death Metal, Queens of the Stone Age, Bjork, Kelly Clarkson, The White Stripes, etc. There are very few genres I don’t appriciate to some extent, although I have a tough time enjoying emo, ska, and r&b.

Movies are pretty cool, and although I don’t pretend to be an expert on them, I will talk about them occasionally. I tend to gravitate toward the pretentious serious films like anything from the Tarantino catalog: specifically Jackie Brown, although Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill are both excellent. I also quite enjoy comedies like Office Space, The Princess Bride, and Saved!. Not to mention anything Monty Python related. In fact, British humor is definitely more my speed.

I would say I love books more than movies on the whole. My favorite authors include Madeleine L’Engle, Tad Williams, J.K. Rowling, Ray Bradbury, and oodles more I am forgetting at the moment. My genre of choice right now seems to be children’s or adolecent fantasy because it does a much better job of capturing the spirit of fantasy than a lot of adult fantasy which insists on throwing in obnoxious, gratuitous sex and stuff.

The one thing most people don’t realize about me when they meet me is my fanatical obsession with Phillies baseball. I am a huge, huge fan and I watch every game that I can on TV. Also a big fan of football (go Eagles)… but nothing really rivals my commitment to the Phillies. The one sport I truly, honestly hate with a passion is basketball. Really, what is the point?

I am a beer snob. I love microbrews. Thankfully Central PA has quite a few very good ones… and is only an hour and a half drive to Philadelphia where there is a whole slew of microbreweries. And hey, we have Stoudts! Every month some church friends and I go to a brewpub and check out the local goods. Expect opinions and reviews on beers right after such trips.

Television. I am a much bigger fan of the products created for TV than the big screen. I mean, Arrested Development? Futurama? Classics. Then there is the old Police Squad show that lasted exactly six episodes before getting canceled… the creators of that went on to do movies like Naked Gun and Airplane!. And can’t forget Monty Python’s Flying Circus… that was one of my best ebay finds.

I have long been a creator of content on the internet. I started off on h2g2.com, a website created by the awesome and clever Douglas Adams, who wrote the entirely too funny Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. I was young and naive. It’s a good site but I only go back really once a year and try to remember my bloody log-in info. Then I moved on to the afore mentioned xanga and blogcritics, of which blogcritics is the most prestigious. Check it out, it’s awesome. Blogcritics.org, a “sinister cabal of superior writers.”

The last thing I shall mention in my virgin post here is that I go to Millersville University where I am in the process of making sure everyone realizes that I am totally awesome.